I have a dilemna.

My club is trying to build up a junior section. We're doing pretty well and, this year, a couple of kids joined us as new members on the basis of the training & racing we're providing. Having kids join us as junior members is encouraging because most juniors come from families already within the club.

Although the club is really in favour of junior members - these guys were welcomed into the club - their parents don't sail and here is my problem.

Our club doesn't allow social membership. You only get to join if you're a sailor.

I think we need to have the parents involved in the running of the Junior section so we need to find a way of getting them into the club on the basis that their kids are sailing with us.

The committee asked me to propose a solution so my question is how do your clubs deal with non-sailing parents of junior members?

And what would you suggest if you were asked to propose a way of allowing them to become part of your club's membership?

(Bear in mind that the club won't want to open itself to "social membership" so the parents involvement is conditional on their kids being members)

Thanks in advance for any comments or suggestions!

Junior Family Membership.  up to 3 sailing juniors (up to the age of 16) to include 2 parents / guardians on the ticket.  Membership requires grown-ups to do 2 shorebased duties per year.

Feel free to shoot this down in flames

Exactly what I would suggest !

Sounds good to me to. We encouage such people to become full family members from day 1 and don't care whether they sail or not.

It is good to get the parents involved and they are there to supervise their children. It takes some of the responsibility away from the club especially if you insist they stay on site during sailing time.  

Last year we re-named our junior membership as junior and guardian membership.  So there is no option to just be a junior member.  For 2 reasons:

1)  We expect all juniors on club grounds to have a guardian on site as well to take responsibility for them.  For liability insurance reasons all people regularly visiting the club should be members or signed in as visitors.  It was easier to make them members.

2)  For the same reason as you're looking for it encouraged the parents feel some ownership of the club and encouraged them to get involved.  Since introducing this we have found a number of the junior memberships ahve been converting to family memberships.

Good suggestions, thank you.

Keep them coming by all means.

I think we're narrowing down to a couple of options here - either expand the current junior membership category so that parents / guardians are signed up "by default" until the junior reaches 18 years old.  

Or allow the parents to join as full family members (its a lot more expensive than a single junior membership, though) on the basis that the kid(s) are sailing even if the mums & dad's aren't.

Currently, Junior (kid only - no parents) membership is about £33.

Family membership is nearer £170 plus an entry fee - so there's a huge difference in cost. We don't want to price any kids out by increasing the junior membership but some incentive for parents to go for family membership would be good.

This is something I may have to take away but if you have any thoughts on membership fees it would be good to know!

You can charge what you like.  You just make it another family membership category with non-sailing parent / guardians.  They can use the club house but can't sail their own boats, (and still have to do their duties   )

I assume you differentiate on the boat stickers and membership card whether it is junior or full membership.

Say £120 for up to 3 sailing juniors plus 2 parents / guardians. 

Yes, fair comment.  I'm just guessing and going on numbers quoted.

IMHO price of membership is a very contentious issue. My only answer is to look at what you get for that memebership. £120 pa for a full years sailing say for 120+ sailing days is very cheap, whereas a club with only 80 sailing days should charge less.....(a sailing day is when there is racing and full club facilities are available)

How do you define "full club facilities", and when are they available?

At Burghfield, we have a permanent Club Manager on duty 7 days a week, so the changing rooms and hot showers are available whenever anyone needs them, and someone official is there to help whenever it is needed.

The locked compound (safe storage for boats) is there all the year round, with CCTV coverage.

We have a small safety boat permanently ready for use by members.

But people are rostered to do safety and race duties only on Saturdays (April to October), Sundays (all year) and Wednesday evenings (April to August). The chandlery is only open on Saturdays and Sundays (and sunny Wednesday evenings!).

The other aspect of membership, is how often can you not sail at the club, becuase the club has organised something else that weekend. At Burghfield, we try to fit in around 20 open events during the year, but we only interrupt the normal club racing on 3 occassions.

Ah, Burghfield...... £120 it is then and they should count themselves lucky.   (Cost them a lot more I think if the progeny were into gee-gees)